If Donald Trump, takes a breath, resets himself, buckles-down for the debates and works behind his surrogates for the coming week, he will be on track for victory. The polling has some very interesting notes in it which bear on the republican’s eventual success but he has to perform this week.

This past week (and this weekend especially) was a big media period of time for both candidates. There were revelations of Hillary’s contempt for Sanders’ voters, Trump’s past taxes, Miss Universe and twitter frustrations as well as Huma partying in Paris and the Clinton Camp apparently having returned to measuring the drapes - all of this in the shadow of WikiLeaks’ next bomb to be dropped.

There’s a lot going on.

First, Mr. Trump needs to make serious debate prep. It should consume his week and he needs to outperform expectations on the 9th. He can do it and needs to do it.

Second, I want to observe that he is handling the taxes matter quite well. Sending excellent surrogates out to discuss a complicated matter is best. He might make his accounting firm available to answer all questions and make all years’ taxes available as well as this past return. Just a thought.

Third, Mr. Trump needs to step away from the twitter and the mic at rallies until he has his head back in the game. Counter-punching time is over and a deliberate, aggressive plan needs to be executed from here out. I know his team is working hard on it and I am looking forward to successful turns of events to come in the early part of October.

Next, let’s take a look at the polls. Mr. Trump has seen a downturn this week. The shift is not significant and it is certainly surmountable but the campaign’s forward progress of ten days ago has been blunted. It can be regained by it will not happen by accident. It will only happen by strict application of the above. This week will probably see the slide continue – not to worry.

Conversely, Hillary’s numbers are startling stagnant. If there is movement in the polls it is because Team Trump is moving up or down while Hillary remains almost utterly unchanged. His votes, when lost, go to “undecided,” “not voting” or one of the other candidates – not to her.

No positive case can be made for her election and the polls show it. Her support is steady, stable and sadly for her, unchanging in the mid to low forties. If Mr. Trump will just take it slow and steady and make the issues his talking points instead of Hillary’s foibles, he will win – the polls predict (almost require) it come to pass.

If he must talk about Hillary, let it be occasionally and as an aside. It should take the form of her being smug and of her legendary self-satisfaction. She has utter contempt for the voters and for the workers.

She has stated that her enemies are Republicans.

She has cast a full quarter of the electorate as “irredeemable deplorable.”

She has said that Sanders’ voters are poorly informed baristas living in their parents’ basements – all while trying to be sympathetic to them!!

She is legendary for treating uniformed personnel like servants and the secret service so badly that they have broken their silence about such things to tell what kind of person she is.

Clearly, she is a product of the Chicago school of leadership which has utter contempt for the people that they lead. They joke about the people that they represent behind closed doors and lie constantly to their constituents to keep their votes. They have a smugness and superiority that has to be seen to be believed.

This is Hillary.

Mr. Trump should talk issues, issues, issues and more issues and when he needs a sharp comeback – use her smugness and lack of concern for the people. A light touch will be enough and any more will be too much.

Last, some good news. My friends tell me that Team Trump is on the air in Chicago!! My friend caught a Trump ad during the evening news. Maybe the polling is telling them something about the fragility of the Illinois numbers. I have always believed that a big push and Illinois might just fall over. We’ll see.